The present invention relates generally to manure spreaders and, more particularly, to a paddle attachment for improving the discharge capabilities of manure spreaders in discharging soupy material.
One type of manure spreader on the market today employs a single beater assembly located in the rear discharge area and has an array of flat saw toothed-like paddles mounted on a rotatable transverse shaft which, when rotated, engages, tears, shreds and scatters the material rearwardly of the spreader. Examples of the shape and configuration of such paddles can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 3,847,356 granted to Blanshine on Nov. 12, 1974 and in U.S. Pat. No. 3,228,701 granted to Smith et al. on Jan. 11, 1966. Generally, the paddles are mounted at an oblique angle to the axis of rotation so that the material is scattered to each side of the spreader as well as to the rear. Over the years, there have been various paddle designs directed toward improving not only the tearing and shredding characteristics of these paddles but also toward achieving a wide uniformly distributed spread pattern, such as in U.S. Pat. No. 3,295,855 granted to Sadler et al. on Jan. 3, 1967 and in U.S. Pat. No. 3,175,830 granted to Lepp on Mar. 30, 1965.
Such single type beater spreaders have proven to be economical over the multiple beater spreaders and perform quite satisfactory in pen-type manure, a more solidified manure characterized by a proportionally high amount of bedding material. However, due to increased costs of labor and bedding material, the modern trend in livestock operations is to use less bedding material resulting in manure being in a more soupy or sloppy state. This soupy manure has a higher moisture content and a less solidified consistency than pen-type manure.
Some livestock operators have tried their box type manure spreaders, normally used for pen-type manure, on this soupy material and are disappointed in that the present day paddles cannot effectively and efficiently discharge the more liquified material. The present day toothed paddle is not designed to rapidly scoop up this soupy material and merely combs through it. As a result, it requires more time to empty a given load of manure. and furthermore, the desired uniformity and the width of the spread pattern is not attained.
The "tank type" spreaders, which are common in the art today, were developed for handling the soupy type of manure. Although these tank type spreaders sufficiently handle this soupy material, they require more power to operate and are generally more expensive than a box type spreader of a comparable capacity. Moreover, these tank type spreaders are generally limited to the handling of soupy material and are not efficient in the handling of pen-type manure.